Strengths of Empiricism Essay

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Empiricism is the claim that sense experience is the sole source of our knowledge about the world. (Lawhead, 55) According to Empiricists, such as John Locke, all knowledge comes from direct sense experience. Locke’s concept of knowledge comes from his belief that the mind is a “blank slate or tabula rosa” at birth, and our experiences are written upon the slate. Therefore, there are no innate experiences. The three strengths of empiricism that will be explained in this paper are: it proves a theory, gives reasoning, and inspires others to explore probabilities in science as an example. The first strength of empiricism is it proves a theory. Empiricists believe that only real knowledge is empirical. We learn from experiment and …show more content…
Because of this, science, an empirical tool used by mankind to explore the world around him and to learn more about himself, is only work in probability. It is safe, based upon a posteriori knowledge, that the sun will rise tomorrow, for it has for millennia upon millennia, and there has been no event to show that it might not rise tomorrow. Without this experimental reasoning however, Empiricism is reduced to past experiences, and yet with it, one is able to make statements such as "The sun will rise tomorrow" with a great degree of certainty. The third strength of empiricism is it inspires others to explore probabilities in science as an example. The exploration of the unknown has always lured the curious. Exploring ways to improve our way of living has been a passion of the modern world. So knowing that we could learn a trait that could be used to uncover the unknown is a curiosity that is hard to resist. Empiricism gave the world a direction towards understanding everything around us… it even gave us the curiosity to the unknown and expanded our views, even when it seemed improbable. In our modern views, we have used rational thinking and theoretical ideas to ignite empiricist methods to direct us to solutions, like in the television show Star Trek. Scientists and inventors watched this popular television shows and after seeing

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